The Motus Motorcycles MST has been a long time coming, especially to Orange County. The first sport tourer from the Birmingham, Ala., startup arrived at its sole O.C. dealer – Indian Motorcycle of Orange County in Westminster – more than a year after the bike went on sale and eight years after the company was founded.

Having ridden the bike for a day last week, I’d say it’s worth the wait. The rare American-made, production motorcycle that is neither a cruiser nor made by a legacy brand, the MST is a well-tuned hot rod that strives to be motorcycling’s Chevy Corvette – at least half of one.

It’s telling that Corvette Racing’s Pratt & Miller Engineering has a significant financial stake in Motus and serves as its chief technical partner, helping design the 1,650cc, liquid-cooled V4 that uses pushrods instead of overhead cams to keep the engine small enough to tuck into its trellis frame, and hydraulic valve trains, negating the need for expensive valve adjustments.

With a meat-and-potatoes profile, the MST is, from all appear-ances, a beast of a bike, but it’s one that’s easily tamed, offering an ideal combination of accessible power, balanced handling and comfort with its upright riding position and adjustable controls. Midreach foot pegs are situated for riders’ knees to be bent at a comfortable 90-degree angle. With its stored-under-the-seat, 21-piece tool kit, the handlebars can be customized for height, reach and wrist angle.

Motus doesn’t provide an exact seat height, preferring instead for people to sit on the MST and see how it feels. Having a 34-inch inseam, I had no trouble straddling the bike and standing flat footed. The seat is narrow where it counts – where saddle meets tank. But if the stock Sargent seat isn’t close enough to the asphalt for the vertically challenged, a lower Sargent with an inch less of foam is available.

In Latin, Motus translates into motion and, by some definitions, rebellion. It’s a fitting name for a riot of a bike that strives to put some muscle car into American motorcycles using a miniaturized version of a small block Chevy engine.

During an afternoon of canyon carving, I never got the MST out of the fourth of its six gears, even on the straights. The MST felt completely at ease, even if its grunting exhaust was forever hinting it could do so much more.

At idle, and in neutral, the MST feels like a Moto Guzzi. It vibrates with power. But as soon as I stepped it into first and twisted the grip, it instantly smoothed out, delivering its monster torque to the rear wheel with an accompanying growl out of its back end.

The V4 offers all the thrilling grunt of a V-twin – and doubles it. Still, it is a rare engine to be found in motorcycles and one that is mostly the domain of pure sport bikes including the Honda VFR and Aprilia RSV4R.

Unlike those bikes, the MST is not meant for the track. It’s a street machine that comfortably cruises at 3,500 to 4,500 rpm and begs to be shifted only as it nears its 7,000-ish redline.

The MST has a top speed of 192 mph, which Motus co-founders Lee Conn and Brian Case have personally tested. They each hold land-speed records on the MST – Conn for the fastest American production bike, and Case for the fastest production pushrod motorcycle of any displacement.

Conn says the MST is the fastest of any American motorcycle and any pushrod engine of any size.

What makes Motus American isn’t only its Alabama mailing address. The bikes are built in Birmingham, using parts sourced from American companies wherever possible. The engines are cast in Indiana and machined in Texas. The seats are made in Florida, the handlebars in Maine and the windscreens, appropriately, in “the windy city” of Chicago.

While the Brembo brakes are Italian, the adjustable Ohlins suspension Swedish and the carbon-fiber-tipped Akrapovic dual exhaust Slovenian, they’re companies that make the best components on the market. And on the Motus MTS, they are stock.

At $30,975, the MST ain’t cheap, but its standard equipment list is impressive. Unlike Harley-Davidson, which, on many models, charges buyers by the option, Motus has intentionally included more to justify the price tag and avoid the expensive customization crazy train.

Being a sport-touring machine, the MST is equipped with cruise control, a power outlet, adjustable windscreen, full-color LCD instrument panel and removable side cases, each of which is large enough to hold a full-face helmet. Options include a heated seat and grips, a second power outlet, a 30-liter top case and a full-size windscreen.

The higher-end $36,975 MST-R adds carbon fiber trimmings and red R badging to a bike that is already surprisingly well fit and finished for a startup’s first motorcycle out of the gate. It probably shouldn’t be surprising. Motus co-founder Case was production designer for the exotic American bike maker Confederate Motorcycles – also based in Birmingham.

Trading the outrageous industrial design of Confederate for the industrial strength and more conventional look of the Motus Sport Tourer is a win for American motorcycling, which has, for far too long, been stuck in the past. Motus is a bold move out of that rut toward the future.

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